Ambrosia Software Web Board: A rant about ship classes - Ambrosia Software Web Board

Do you think its necessary for all species to follow the "Cruiser/Gunship/HVD/Carrier" setup that's in Ares? I think that it oversimplifies fleet operations, and leaves a lot of gaps. There need to be more ship classes.

now, here's the part where I flex my naval history Muscle and write some stuff about ship classes(from smalles to largest)

Gunship: used in olden times, they had around twenty oars, and usually carried one cannon. Their one advantage was that they could run circles around a sailing vessel.

Sloop: In olden times(1800s), any ship with less than three masts and under thirty guns was a sloop. Small and weak, as well as slow compared to larger ships, these were still useful because they were almost expendible to the british navy.

brigantine(brig)Corvette, argosy: could be pretty much anything. argosies tended to be merchants, brigs and corvettes were fighting ships.


Destroyer-this term came up just before world war 2, and basically described "Submarine Destroyers" Modern destroyers carry extremely sensitive sonars, as well as helicopters to drop sonobouys. They use both missiles and rocket deployed torpedoes(launched into air, fly a few thousand feet, land, go kill subs/ships) to engage both land, sea and, espescially air units. Destroyers tend to have Aircraft and Missile interceptor missiles and guns, to shoot down incoming aircraft and missiles.

Frigate- no longer used today, frigates were the broadest class, describing any ship over thirty guns, with three guns. These were faster than sloops, carried more guns, a bigger crew, and could lay waste to a lot more stuff.

Ship of the Line: big ships, of a hundred guns or more, with several gun decks. These were the big cheezes of the navy at one time. When the French deployed four of them to secure the Indian Ocean, the British got VERY worried about their hold on the east.

Cruiser- A relatively large ship, designed to have the firepower and capability to engage other large ships, but their main ability was their speed. they were designed to have the fastest cruising speed in the fleet(hence, cruiser) but still have fighting capabilities.

AEGIS cruiser- the most modern class, The Aegis cruiser has one five inch gun, and three anti missile, radar guided chainguns. These carry a hundred-odd vertically launched cruise missiles, as well as turretted anti aircraft missiles, and tremendously powerful radars. These are the eyes and ears as well as the slingshot of the fleet, capable of taking out precision targets at long range (enemy ships too)

Battlecruiser- Designed to have the firepower of a battleship with the speed of a cruiser. The sacrifice usually came out of the armor. The ship was designed to be a quick way to move firepower around.

Battleship-This is the bad boy. The largest ship with the most guns and the most armor. The biggest guns are capable of firing HUGE shells over fifty miles. In addition, they have huge numbers and assortments of smaller guns. These are the Iron fist of the fleet, doleing out destruction over a relatively short range.

Dreadnought-actually the name of the first real battleship(made by the brits in the 1910's) first to have steam turbines and big guns and lots of electrical power. Opened the door to the modern navy

Marine Landing Ship-carries 5000 marines, 4 hovercraft, 6 harrier jump jets, and dozens of helicopter transports and gunships. A self contained Marine base, ready to deploy instantly.

Escort Carrier- in world war 2, many old freighters simply had platforms strapped on the deck, and named escort carriers, because they were used to escort the convoys of Supply ships

Light Carrier-the UK and other nations can't afford to build the huge aircraft carriers the US uses, so they have little ones. The British ones carry a dozen Harriers, plus choppers.

Aircraft Carrier:A big ship powered by a gas turbine engine. Carries an entire wing of eighty aircraft. Besides these planes, the ship is defenceless. Mainly used because the
US draws a lot of power from air forces.

Supercarrier: Nuclear carrier. Preferable to the normal one because it uses a ten pound lump of fuel to travel several thousand times farther. Can be deployed for six months without resupply, even then, only needs Jet fuel and food, both of which can be done while the ship is sailing, via resupply ships.

Wow... that was self indulgent... what do you think?

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*thinks that Terran Wars will have more classes than Ares, but not that many, and there's no way he'd ever do that many*

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"Oi, oi, oi, me got a hurt n here
Oi, oi, oi, me smell a ting is near
Me gonna bosh and me gonna nosh
An da hurt'll dissapear"

Well, I certainly welcome more ship classes although I have to disagree with your rankings. From what I understand, there are roughly 5 standard classes (smallest to largest): corvette, frigate, destroyer, cruiser, carrier. Of course there are a bunch of non-standard classes such as battleships (which are nothing but glorified cruisers and in terms of size should be between cruiser and carrier). Of course, there are variants within each class also: heavy cruiser, light cruiser, armored cruiser, supercarrier, pocket carrier,...etc.

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Mag, one thing you should do is reorder the ship classifications so that they are more in order for your plug. The current ordering in the Ares universe is a bit out. I think I had a rant about this not too long ago.

Yah, Pharris you're also missing the really light ships like fighters, interceptors, fighter/bombers, etc. You have to include them. They're glamorous. One must love the grandness of space-fighters. They're just cool. And, they are effective. The small size makes them very hard to hit, and the amount of damage that they can deal out compared to their cost is impressive. Given the proper ordinance of course. Fighters can carry big bombs that kill big ships. Then you get other fighters to kill those fighters and you have fighters to protect them and well you get the idea. Hence the modern fighter.

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Ne Cede Malis Sed Contra Audientor Ito

Don't worry about the reordering, I've got it covered.

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"Oi, oi, oi, me got a hurt n here
Oi, oi, oi, me smell a ting is near
Me gonna bosh and me gonna nosh
An da hurt'll dissapear"

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Actually, I believe that the first dreadnought was built by the Germans, with the British immediately building one in response/

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-Pallas Athene of Dysian Beta, Obish Consensus Representative
-Nieru Dast, {M}ilitia Aeriane
-Danae Vernius
ThinkFish, and good things will come.

the bismark was a dreadnought but i dont think thats what your talking about.

Pharris: thanks for the refreshing of classes, you just gave me the idea for a couple new kinds of ships.

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just take my post, and imagine everything is speeled right.
nickel count: 7

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Quite the opposite, the British built the first dreadnought, which as Pharris said was named the 'Dreadnought' and then Germany started building one to counter the threat.

Pyro: The Bismark was from World War 2

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I have a plan so ingenius even an idiot could have devised it. On my command, we will line up our ships and fly straight into the enemy death-cannons clogging them with wreckage.

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I knew it was one way or the other. But I don't think it was just to counter the threat, more of a "I'm bigger and better than you" kind of thing.

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-Pallas Athene of Dysian Beta, Obish Consensus Representative
-Nieru Dast, {M}ilitia Aeriane
-Danae Vernius
ThinkFish, and good things will come.

That whole arms race was what's known as a "macho muscle flexing". Basically, some really egomaniacal people in both navies are determined to have the biggest and best stuff. Actually, replace "navies" with "armed forces", as they were determined to have the best armies, too (they neglected planes, for reasons that seem silly in retrospect).

Of course, most of it turned out to not be quite the greatest (the brits got hammered at Jutland due to poor tactics and inability to aim at indistinct targets with their rangefinders), and it really made a lot of people look foolish (at least to me, now).

Yes, I AM on of those people who watches the History Channel for fun.

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William Darkk, head of the Darkklight Entrepenurial Federation
Your cargo or your life!!!

Actually, what I said was that there is no such class of ship as a dreadnought.

It is used sometimes, because of the HMS Dreadnought, the first ship that could be called a modern Battleship, that looked like a modern battleship, that had modern guns and moder rangefinding technology, and modern steam turbine engines, the whole bit. It was totally revolutionary, and the name became famous. Basically it was the first battleship, now it means a really big fighting ship.

Now, by popular demand, here are the fighters:

Air/Space Superiority Fighter: This is the badass, the plane that every fighter jock dreams about strapping on for a ride. The most power, the tightest turning, hardest burning, fastest flying hunk of metal in the sky. Excellent at wasteing enemy aircraft at any range, useing a combination of missiles and guns. ex: P-51 Mustang, Me-109, Spitfire, F-4 fantom, F-14 Tomcat, F-15C Eagle, F-22 Raptor.

Interceptor: High speed, high manouverability, high firepower, designed to launch in a flash and kick ass right over the airfield. Recently has become blurred with the air superiority fighter, to mean all weather fightercraft. Back in WW2, the germans had all sorts of crazy rocket powered ships to knock down american fighters and Bombers.

Fighter/Bomber. These guys are the workhorses of the air. They'll do whatever you want, whenever you want, to whoever you want. These are the ships that carry the bombs out, blast the planes on the way, and dole out the punishment once they;re on scene. Recently, more and more planes are becoming multirole, as its more cost efficient. F/A-18 Hornet, F-16 Fighting Falcon, F-15E Strike Eagle. These are also often used as Wild Weasels

Wild Weasels. The pilots of wild weasels are required to be absolutely nuts. They fly straight towards SAM sites, taunting the SAM operators into lighting up their radars and firing missiles, at which point, the Plane fires its Radar seeking HARM and ARM missiles, and hopes it's big ECM Pod can get the missiles off his tail while he runs like a scared son of a bitch.

Close Air Support. These suckers are the ugly mofos that that hang low over the field, watching for the Forward air controller to scream over his radio that his unit is pinned down behind hill 114, and that he wants to turn the north side into fiery Napalm death for the evil Commie Pinkos. These Tank Plinkers are usually very vulneralble to SAMs because they are always flying low and slow. A-10 warthog, AV-8B Harrier, F-8 coarsair.

Tactical Bomber. Slightly larger than standard fightercraft, now a days, these bad boys carry between 2-4 laser guided bombs, During desert storm, these guys are the guys who dive bombed carriers in WW2, and the ones who took out individual trucks on the hiways of Iraq. These guys tend to be Hardened pilots, because they're always flying over enemy territory without escort, in overloaded planes while SAM sites take pot shots at them. Usually, they can't wait to dump the bombs on target and light the burners for the border. In more modern times, these guys started working in teams, one carrying the laser illuminator over the target at high altitude, low speed, while the wingmen speed under near mach one, and drop the bombs without having to slow to acquire targets. F-111 Aardvark, Tornado,

Strategic Bomber. These are the big boys of the Navy. Back in olden times, these big ugly fat ****ers(under the acronym BUFFS) would carry bombs over the channel, and turn the French countryside into a torn up pile of dead Nazi scum, then they were the United State's way of turning the Reds into atomic dust, now a days, these guys carry cruise missiles to places our fighters can't. In the eighties, it became apparant that a Huge B-52 would be noticed by commies a million miles away, so they designed the B-1, a lighter, faster bomber capable of Mach 2, to run into enemy territory, and fire cruise missiles for the last few hundred miles. B-24 Liberator, B-17 Flying fortress, B-29 superfortress, B-52 Stratofortress.

Stealth Bomber: The F-117, and the B-2 are the only stealth Bombers. The F117 is small, and only carries two bombs, but it can fly over the SAM riddled skies over Baghdad without worry, and can drop them on your head from 30,000 feet. The B-2 carries Satelite Guided bombs, which are dropped from higher up, through clouds and such, but it can't fly in the rain.

One thing I've seen in Several space games(ok, fine, in Tie Fighter) is a missile boat.
This thing just carries loads and loads of Huge Missiles and Rockets. It combines Massive firepower with almost no armour, and relies on manoeverability to save itself from big ships, and fighters to save it from other fighters.

Thats about it. Questions? Comments?


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Just to respond to points made by Pallas Athene and Fleet Admiral Darkk:

I don't think people truly appreciate how revolutionary the HMS Dreadnought was. It caused the Germans to reconstruct their entire navy at that time because the construction of that ship demonstrated an overwhelming threat to German security. The reconstruction cost an astronomical sum. You don't spend money like that for ego.

The HMS Dreadnought was bascially the nuclear weapon of its time. That was how revolutionary it was. The Germans were humiliated by the British interception of its sale of arms to the Boers and later on, the Morocco Affair. In both instances, the Germans were forced to back down because their navy was weak. They didn't regard the expansion of their navy simply as a matter of national honor. They regarded it as an issue of survival. They needed a powerful navy to protect their overseas interests.

As a side note regarding the Battle of Jutland: It was a tactical defeat for the British but also a strategic victory. For the rest of the war, the German surface fleet was bottled up in its ports, never to venture outwards.

You also have to realize that German ships were newer and faster.

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The Dreadnaught was NOT the nuclear weapon of the time. That analogy has one MAJOR flaw: nuclear weapons are unanswerable, and dreadnaughts aren't.

Nuclear missles don't have a really effective defense, ABMs don't work nearly enough of the time to stop any serious attack, and I've heard there are countermeasures available to make missles immune to interception. Furthermore, they annihilate large areas, and can cause tremendous strategic devistation on a large scale.

Dreadnaughts were superior to pre-dreadnaught battleships, but 2 predreadnaughts could take a dreadnaught, no problem, in most cases. The pre-dreadnaughts didn't really become obsolete as battleships until after WW1.

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William Darkk, head of the Darkklight Entrepenurial Federation
Your cargo or your life!!!

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I'm afraid that's not true. I quote you Dr. Geoffrey Blainey's "The Causes of War"

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There was a WWI battleship called the Bismark.


Funny story about H.M.S. Dreadnought: The heading of an official paper to the Admiralty sent by Sir John Fisher, the First Sea Lord:

NEW NAME FOR THE DREADNOUGHT
The Hard-Boiled Egg
Why? Because she cant be beaten.

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Grand Fleet Admiral Slathkill, Supreme Commander I.M.A. Fleet

[This message has been edited by Admiral Slathkill II (edited 01-01-2001).]

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No, the only 'Bismark' prior to WW2 was the German General in the 1870s, after which I assume the WW2 battleship was named.

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I have a plan so ingenius even an idiot could have devised it. On my command, we will line up our ships and fly straight into the enemy death-cannons clogging them with wreckage.

Bismark wasn't a general, he was a chancelor, advisor to the King, and all that.

I must be reading a different book of military history. Mine claims that the Dreadnaught wasn't an unbeatable improvement over her immediate predescesors.

*Heaves heavy reference book to computer*

There WAS a WWI battleship called the Bismark. She was under construction in 1900.

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Grand Fleet Admiral Slathkill, Supreme Commander I.M.A. Fleet

Apparantly, she was no Dreadnought

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In order to string this out longer than necessary, how about I ask what classes you think are missing in Ares. I personally think that if the HVD is Heavy, wtf is the light one? I think an HVC is more like a battlecruiser, large, heavy firepower, but very light armour and high speed.

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NEW NAME FOR THE DREADNOUGHT
The Hard-Boiled Egg
Why?
Because she cant be beaten!

A battleship from each race, something capable of holding it's own alone, unlike a carrier.

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"Think of this as a partnership," Gates said. "Like the ones and zeroes of the binary code itself, we must all work together to make the promise of the computer revolution a reality. As the world's richest, most powerful software company, Microsoft is number one. And you, the millions of consumers who use our products, are the zeroes."

I think that the limited number of weapons means that multirole vessels are hard to build. Most ships are pretty focused, except for the cruiser; Gunship=anti Carrier/HVD HVD=Anti Carrier Carrier=Anti fighter/cruiser fighter=pestering cruisers

I mean, when an Ish carrier fights a Can carrier, its ridiculous. they sit there pummeling eachother to pieces with these weak weapons. It's silly.

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Faris eck Vaenar Maletena-Wizr, Trey'ish of the Ishiman reestablishment comittee.
"I don't think I'm alone when I say that I'd like to see more and more planets fall under the ruthless domination of our solar system."

A multirole vessle is easy to design. Start with the Obish battleship and add 50 flack shots. It kills EVERYTHING. Wait, Slug did that already. If you don't like that, replace "50 flack shots" with "150 <HVD weapon> shots". There's a multirole vessle, albiet unbalenced.

The Human HVD, if you replace the magnetos with missles and give it a little more shields, makes a nice multirole vessle. The problem with multirole vessles is that they tend to get unbalenced. Therefor, all plugs made by me will either only let you have one at a time, or give the enemy them too, or just give the enemy numbers.

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William Darkk, head of the Darkklight Entrepenurial Federation
"Strategic warfare" is code for "killing civilians", and it's my calling. Yeah, it's barbaric. War's supposed to be.

Carriers that instead of launching fighters biuld them and use the extra weapons space to add powerful weapons. This avoids Trey'ish Maletena-Wizr's problem.

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Grand Fleet Admiral Slathkill, Supreme Commander I.M.A. Fleet

Read the thread in the briefing room on this.
Ships that build don't take movement orders.

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William Darkk, head of the Darkklight Entrepenurial Federation
"Strategic warfare" is code for "killing civilians", and it's my calling. Yeah, it's barbaric. War's supposed to be.